Lorenzo stuns Happy with a late 3-pointer

Area class 1A boys teams face tough foes

Posted: Saturday, March 01, 2008

Les Gilesleslie.giles@amarillo.com

LEVELLAND - Happy head coach Barry Stevens could only sit and watch as Lorenzo's Luis Castaneda drained a 3-pointer from the left wing as time expired to end the No. 2-ranked Cowboys' dreams of reaching next week's state tournament.

The Hornets, who lost by 12 points to Happy at the Caprock Tournament, did an about-face and got lucky as the Cowboys missed 14 free throws that ultimately did them in.

The result was a thrilling 48-45 victory by Lorenzo on Friday afternoon before 575 fans at the Texan Dome in the Region I-1A Division II semifinals. It sends the Matadors into today's 2 p.m. regional championship against Paducah.

"We got lucky," said Lorenzo head coach Larry Birdwell. "If they don't miss 14 free throws, we aren't playing for the regional title."

When asked what the difference was in this meeting, Birdwell said, "in that game we didn't press them at all.

"We just played them straight up and took our lumps. I thought if we had a chance to meet them again in the postseason I didn't want them to have played against our press."

The Cowboys won the rebound battle, 33-19, including 23-15 at the offensive end and shot slightly better from the field. Happy was 16-of-33 including 2-of-5 treys (48.5 percent). Lorenzo shot 38.5 percent on 15-of-39, including 7-of-16 from behind the arc.

"Their press bothered us," Stevens said. "But the fact we shot so poorly from the free-throw line killed us. Give them credit. That kid hit a great shot at the buzzer. We turned the ball over twice late in the game and they scored both times off them."

Trevor Johnson led the Cowboys with 12 points, while Joaquin Saenz and Darius Kimberling had 11 each.